by Wilbur Smith
‘Bazo and I grew up together on the Kimberley diamond fields. I have never had a dearer friend,’ Ralph explained quickly, and then turned impetuously back to Bazo. ‘We have a little food, you will share it with us, Bazo.’ This time Ralph caught the shift in Bazo’s gaze, and he insisted. ‘Camp with us here. There is much to talk about.’
‘I have my woman and my son with me,’ Bazo answered. ‘They are in the hills.’
‘Bring them,’ Ralph told him. ‘Go quickly, before darkness falls, and bring them down into camp.’
Bazo alerted his men with the dusk call of the francolin, and one of them stepped out of the ambush onto the path.
‘I will hold the white men at the foot of the hills for tonight,’ Bazo told him quietly. ‘Perhaps I can send them away satisfied, without trying to find the valley. However, warn the ironsmiths that the kilns must be quenched by dawn tomorrow, there must be no shred of smoke.’
Bazo went on giving his orders, the finished weapons and freshly smelted metal to be hidden and the paths swept clear of spoor, the ironsmiths to retreat along the secret path deeper into the hills, the Matabele guards to cover their retreat. ‘I will follow you when the white men have gone. Wait for me at the peak of the Blind Ape.’
‘Nkosi.’ They saluted him, and slipped away, silent as the night-prowling leopard, into the failing light. Bazo took the fork in the path, and when he reached the rocky spur on the prow of the hill, there was no need for him to call. Tanase was waiting for him with the boy carried on her hip, the roll of sleeping-mats upon her head and the leather grain-bag slung on her back.
‘It is Henshaw,’ he told her, and heard the serpentine hiss of her breath. Though he could not see her expression, he knew what it must be.
‘He is the spawn of the white dog who violated the sacred places—’
‘He is my friend,’ Bazo said.
‘You have taken the oath,’ she reminded him fiercely. ‘How can any white man still be your friend?’
‘He was my friend, then.’
‘Do you remember the vision that came to me, before the powers of divination were torn from me by this man’s father?’
‘Tanase,’ Bazo ignored the question, ‘we must go down to him. If he sees my wife and my son are with me, then there will be no suspicions. He will believe that we are indeed hunting the honey of wild bees. Follow me.’ He turned back down the trail, and she followed him closely, and her voice sank to a whisper, of which he could clearly hear every word. He did not look back at her, but he listened.
‘Do you remember my vision, Bazo? On the first day that I met this man whom you call the Hawk, I warned you. Before the birth of your son, when the veil of my virginity was still unpierced, before the white horsemen came with their three-legged guns that laugh like the river demons that live in the rocks where the Zambezi river falls. When you still called him “brother” and “friend”, I warned you against him.’
‘I remember.’ Bazo’s own voice had sunk as low as hers.
‘In my vision I saw you high upon a tree, Bazo.’
‘Yes,’ he whispered, going on down the trail without looking back at her. There was a superstitious tremor in Bazo’s voice now, for his beautiful young wife had once been the apprentice of the mad sorcerer, Pemba. When Bazo at the head of his impi had stormed the sorcerer’s mountain stronghold, he had hacked off Pemba’s head and taken Tanase as a prize of war, but the spirits had claimed her back.
On the eve of the wedding-feast when Bazo would have taken the virgin Tanase as his first bride, as his senior wife, an ancient wizard had come down out of the Matopos Hills and led her away, and Bazo had been powerless to intervene, for she had been the daughter of the dark spirits and she had come to her destiny in these hills.
‘The vision was so clear that I wept,’ Tanase reminded him, and Bazo shivered.
In that secret cave in the Matopos the full power of the spirits had descended upon Tanase, and she had become the Umlimo, the chosen one, the oracle. It was Tanase, speaking in the weird voices of the spirits, who had warned Lobengula of his fate. It was Tanase who had foreseen the coming of the white men with their wonderful machines that turned the night to noon day, and their little mirrors that sparkled like stars upon the hills, speeding messages vast distances across the plains. No man could doubt that she had once had the power of the oracle, and that in her mystic trances she had been able to see through the dark veils of the future for the Matabele nation.
However, these strange powers had depended upon her maidenhead remaining unpierced. She had warned Bazo of this, pleading with him to strip her of her virginity and rid her of these terrible powers, but he had demurred, bound by law and custom, until it had been too late and the wizards had come down from the hills to claim her.
At the beginning of the war which the white men had carried so swiftly to Lobengula’s kraal at GuBulawayo, a small band had detached from the main army; they were the hardest and cruellest, led by Bakela the Fist, himself a hard fierce man. They had ridden swiftly into these hills. They had followed the secret path that Bakela had discovered twenty-five years or so before, and galloped to the secret cavern of the Umlimo. For Bakela knew the value of the oracle, knew how sacred she was, and how her destruction would throw the Matabele nation into despair. Bakela’s riders had shot down the guardians of the caverns, and forced their way within. Two of Bakela’s troopers had found Tanase, young and lovely and naked in the deepest recesses of the cave, and they had violated her, savagely tearing the maidenhead that she had once offered so lovingly to Bazo. They had rutted upon her until her virgin blood splattered the floor of the cavern and her screams had guided Bakela to them.
He had driven his men off her with fist and boot, and when they were alone, he had looked down upon Tanase where she lay bloodied and broken at his feet. Then strangely, this hard fierce man had been overcome with compassion. Though he had ridden this dangerous road for the sole purpose of destroying the Umlimo, yet the bestial behaviour of his troopers had weakened his resolve, had placed some burden of recompense upon him.
Bakela must have known that with her virginity torn from her she had lost her powers, for he told her: ‘You, who were Umlimo, are Umlimo no longer.’ He had accomplished her destruction without using rifle or sword, and he turned and strode from the dark cavern, leaving her life in exchange for her virginity and the loss of her dark powers.
She had told the story to Bazo many times, and he knew that the mists of time had closed before her eyes and that now they shrouded the future from her, but no man could doubt that she had once possessed the power of the Sight.
Thus Bazo shivered briefly, and he felt the ghost fingers touching the nape of his neck as Tanase went on in her husky whisper.
‘I wept, Bazo my lord, when I saw you upon the high tree, and while I wept, the man you call Henshaw the Hawk was looking up at you – and smiling!’
They ate cold bully beef straight from the cans, using the blade of a hunting knife to spoon it out, and passing the cans from hand to hand. There was no coffee, so they washed down the glutinous mess with sun-warmed draughts from the felt-covered water bottles, and then Ralph shared out his remaining cheroots with Harry Mellow and Bazo. They lit them with burning twigs from the fire and smoked in silence for a long time.
Close at hand a hyena warbled and sobbed in the darkness, drawn by the firelight and the smell of food, while further out across the plain, the lions were hunting, sweeping towards the moonrise, not roaring before the kill but coughing throatily to keep in contact with the other animals in the pride.
Tanase, with the child on her lap, sat at the edge of the firelight, aloof from the men, and they ignored her. It would have offended Bazo if they had paid undue attention to her, but now Ralph took the cheroot from his mouth and glanced in her direction.
‘What is your son’s name?’ he asked Bazo, and there was a heartbeat of hesitation before Bazo replied.
‘He is called Tungata Zebiwe.’
Ralph frowned quickly, but checked the harsh words that rose to his lips. Instead he said, ‘He is a fine boy.’
Bazo held out his hand towards the child, but Tanase restrained him for a moment with a quiet ferocity.
‘Let him come to me,’ Bazo ordered sharply, and reluctantly Tanase let the sleepy child stagger to his father and climb into his arms.
He was a pretty, dark toffee colour, with a pot belly and chubby limbs. Except for the bracelets of copper wire at his wrists and a single string of beads around his waist, he was stark naked. His hair was a dark fluffy cap and his eyes were owlish with sleep as he stared at Ralph.
‘Tungata Zebiwe,’ Ralph repeated his name, and then leaned across to stroke his head. The child made no attempt to pull away, nor did he show any trace of alarm, but in the shadows Tanase hissed softly and reached out as if to take the child back, then dropped her hand again.
‘The Seeker after what has been stolen,’ Ralph translated the child’s name, and caught the mother’s dark eyes. ‘The Seeker after justice – that is a heavy duty to place upon one so young,’ he said quietly. ‘You would make him an avenger of injustice inflicted before his birth?’
Then smoothly Ralph seemed to change to a different subject.
‘Do you remember, Bazo, the day we first met? You were a green youth sent by your father and his brother the king to work on the diamond fields. I was even younger and greener, when my father and I found you in the veld and he signed you to a three-year labour contract, before any other digger could put his brand on you.’
The lines of suffering and sorrow that marred Bazo’s features seemed to smooth away as he smiled, and for a few moments he was that young guileless and carefree youth again.
‘It was only later I found out that the reason Lobengula sent you and thousands of other young bucks like you to the fields was to bring home as many fat diamonds as you could steal.’ They both laughed, Ralph ruefully and Bazo with a vestige of his youthful glee.
‘Lobengula must have hidden a great treasure somewhere. Jameson never did find those diamonds when he captured GuBulawayo.’
‘Do you remember the hunting falcon, Scipio?’ Bazo asked.
‘And the giant spider that won us our first gold sovereigns at the Kimberley spider-fights,’ Ralph continued, and they chatted animatedly, recalling how they had worked shoulder to shoulder in the great diamond pit, and the mad diversions with which they had broken the dreadful monotony of that brutal labour.
Not understanding the language, Harry Mellow rolled in his blanket and pulled the corner of it over his head. In the shadows Tanase sat, still as a beautiful ebony carving, not smiling when the men laughed but with her eyes fastened on their lips as they spoke.
Abruptly Ralph changed the subject again. ‘I have a son also,’ he said. ‘He was born before the war, so he is a year or two older than yours.’
The laughter dried immediately, and although Bazo’s expression was neutral, his eyes were wary.
‘They could be friends, as we are friends,’ Ralph suggested, and Tanase looked protectively towards her son, but Bazo did not reply.
‘You and I could work side by side once more,’ Ralph went on. ‘Soon I will have a rich gold mine in the forests yonder, and I will need a senior induna in charge of the hundreds of men who will come to work.’
‘I am a warrior,’ said Bazo, ‘no longer a mine labourer.’
‘The world changes, Bazo,’ Ralph answered softly. ‘There are no longer any warriors in Matabeleland. The shields are burned. The assegai blades are broken. The eyes are no longer red, Bazo, for the wars are finished. The eyes are white now, and there will be peace in this land for a thousand years.’
Bazo was silent.
‘Come with me, Bazo. Bring your son to learn the white man’s skills. One day he will read and write, and be a man of consequence, not merely a hunter of wild honey. Forget this sad name you have given him, and find another. Call him a joyous name and bring him to meet my own son. Together they will enjoy this beautiful land, and be brothers as we once were brothers.’
Bazo sighed then. ‘Perhaps you are right, Henshaw. As you say, the impis are disbanded. Those who were once warriors now work on the roads that Lodzi is building.’ The Matabele always had difficulty in pronouncing the sound of ‘R’, thus Rhodes was ‘Lodzi’, and Bazo was referring to the system of conscripted labour which the Chief Native Commissioner, General Mungo St John, had introduced in Matabeleland. Bazo sighed again. ‘If a man must work, it is better that he work in dignity at a task of importance with somebody whom he respects. When will you begin to dig for your gold, Henshaw?’
‘After the rains, Bazo. But come with me now. Bring your woman and your son—’
Bazo held up one hand to silence him. ‘After the rains, after the great storms, we will talk again, Henshaw,’ Bazo said quietly, and Tanase nodded her head and for the first time she smiled, an odd little smile of approval. Bazo was right to dissemble and to lull Henshaw with vague promises. With her specially trained sense of awareness, Tanase recognized that despite the direct gaze of his green eyes and his open, almost childlike smile, this young white man was harder and more dangerous than even Bakela, his father.
‘After the great storms,’ Bazo had promised him, and that had a hidden meaning. The great storm was the secret thing that they were planning.
‘First there are things that I must do, but once they are done, I will seek you out,’ Bazo promised.
Bazo led up the steep gradient of the narrow pathway through the deep gut of the granite hills. Tanase followed a dozen paces behind him. The roll of sleeping-mats and the iron cooking-pot were carried easily on her head, and her spine was straight and her step fluid and smooth to balance the load. The boy skipped at her side, singing a childish nonsense in a high piping chant. He was the only one unaffected by the brooding menace of this dark valley. The scrub on each side of the path was dense and armed with vicious thorn. The silence was oppressive, for no bird sang and no small animal rustled the leaves.
Bazo stepped lightly across the boulders in the bed of the narrow stream that crossed the trail and paused to look back as Tanase scooped a handful of the cool water and held it to the boy’s lips. Then they went on.
The path ended abruptly against a sheer cliff of pearly granite, and Bazo stopped and leaned on the light throwing-spear, the only weapon that the white administrator in Bulawayo allowed a black man to carry to protect himself and his family against the predators which infested the wilderness. It was a frail thing, not an instrument of war like the broad stabbing assegai.
Leaning his weight on the spear, Bazo looked up the tall cliff. There was a watchman’s thatched hut on a ledge just below the summit, and now a quavering old man’s voice challenged him.
‘Who dares the secret pass?’ Bazo lifted his chin and answered in a bull-bellow which sent the echoes bouncing from the cliffs.
‘Bazo, son of Gandang. Bazo, Induna of the Kumalo blood royal.’
Then, not deigning to await the reply, Bazo stepped through the convoluted portals of granite, into the passageway that split the cliff.
The passage was narrow, barely wide enough for two grown men to walk shoulder to shoulder, and the floor was clean white sand with chips of bright mica that sparkled and crunched like sugar under his bare feet. The passage twisted like a maimed serpent, and then abruptly debouched into a sweeping valley of lush green, bisected by a tinkling stream that spilled from the rock-face near where Bazo stood.
The valley was a circular basin a mile or so across, completely walled in by the high cliffs. In its centre was a tiny village of thatched huts, but as Tanase came out of the mouth of the secret passage and stopped beside Bazo, both of them looked beyond the village to the opposite wall of the valley.
In the base of the cliff, the low wide opening of a cavern snarled at them like a toothless mouth. Neither of them spoke for many minutes as they stared across at the sacred cave, but the memor
ies came crowding back upon both of them. In that cavern Tanase had undergone the frightful indoctrination and initiation which had transformed her into the Umlimo, and on the rocky floor she had suffered the cruel abuse that had stripped her of her powers, and made her an ordinary woman once more.
Now in that cavern another being presided in Tanase’s place as spiritual head of the nation, for the powers of the Umlimo never die, but are passed on from one initiate to another, as they had been from forgotten times when the ancients had built the great stone ruins of the Zimbabwe.
‘Are you ready?’ Bazo asked at last.
‘I am ready, lord,’ she replied, and they started down towards the village. But before they reached it, they were met by a weird procession of creatures, some of them barely recognizable as human, for they crawled on all fours and whined and yapped like animals. There were ancient withered crones with empty dugs flapping against their bellies, pretty little girls with pubescent breast-buds and blank unsmiling faces, old men with deformed limbs who dragged themselves in the dust, and slim mincing youths with well-formed muscular bodies and mad eyes that rolled back into their skulls, all of them decked with the gruesome paraphernalia of the necromancer and wizard, bladders of lion and crocodile, skin of python and bird, skulls and teeth of ape, of man, and of beast. They ringed Bazo and Tanase, prancing and mewling and leering, until Bazo felt his skin itching with the insects of loathing and he lifted his son high on his shoulder away from their touching, prying hands.
Tanase was unperturbed, for this fantastic throng had once been her own retinue, and she stood expressionless as one of the horrible witches crawled to her and slobbered and frothed over her bare feet. Dancing and chanting, the guardians of the Umlimo led the two wanderers into the village, and then disappeared, slipping away into the thatched huts.